Albert Pujols won his 2nd MVP Award today, getting some revenge on Ryan Howard for stealing the award away from Pujols in 2006. In talking about the Cy Young Award and why maybe Johan didn't win, I said how people expect greatness from Johan so when he is great it goes a little unnoticed. I think the same or more even can be said about Pujols. Nobody will argue that Albert isn't the best hitter in the game, so when he puts up the best hitting stats in the game nobody is amazed, even though they should be. I was worried that would be a problem in the MVP voting this year, fortunately it wasn't and Pujols won the award.
Howard owns Pujols in the sexy counting stats, beating Pujols in homeruns 48 to 37, and RBI 146 to 116. But a deeper look into the numbers, and not even that deep or sophisticated, Albert destroyed Howard. Howard had more homers, but Pujols slugged over .100 better (.653 to .543), Pujols was laughably better in OBP (.462 to .339) and OPS (1.115 to .882). Albert had the 73rd highest OPS of all time this year and Howard had the 28th best OPS in the MLB 2008. Pujols was 2nd in the NL in AVG and OBP (thanks to a pretty lucky year by Chipper), and first in Slugging and OPS. Any stat that you want to use besides HR and RBI will show that Pujols wins, even defense when you consider Pujols is among the best defenders at his position, and Howard is well a future DH.
Beyond some of the stats there are obvious cases for Pujols. Howard had a great lineup around him with Rollins, Utley, Burrel, and Victorino. These are great hitters that get on base, hit for power, hit for average, and do extremely well on the base paths. Who did Pujols have around him, Cesar Itzturis, Rick Ankiel, and Ryan Ludwick? I understand points that say Pujols didn't lead his team to the playoffs, but you could swap Howard for any number of first baseman, and the Phillies would still make the playoffs. If you do the same to Pujols they would lose several more games, Pujols makes a bad team look respectable.
Even though the race wasn't super close, it was still too close. Albert got 18 first place votes, but I'm still amazed how 12 voters still decided Howard was the first choice for MVP. If the Phillies were swept in the first round, would those 12 people still think Howard was more deserving than Pujols? Also, some of the other votes really make no sense. The Mets obviously didn't make the playoffs, yet Wright and Delgado got more votes than Chase Utley. Explain to me this, how does a division winner and by all means the best second baseman by a wide margin in the entire sport get less votes than a 1b and 3b with worse stats (when one considers defense)? Technically I'm glad they got it right, Pujols won the MVP, but looking at all of the voting shows that these writers still have much to learn about baseball.
Agreed, Pujols deserved the MVP. Will be interesting to see what Pujols says, regarding receiving this reward. When Howard stole the honor in 2006 he commented saying something along the lines of players on playoff and winning teams should receive an edge in the voting if they have comparable statistics. Well, in the end it evened out... though I would give it to Pujols everytime out of principle of being the best hitter in baseball.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, the writers do need to get it right. They know plenty about baseball, but they are biased with teams, certain players, and each have their own way of defining what the MVP is.